What could be more powerful than Will Power?

We are taught from the get-go that we must use will power to overcome all the problems, bad-habits and ways of living that are considered destructive to our needs.

The problem is that most people struggle with will power. They feel that they don’t have any, that their strength has left them or that this magical will power and determination that other people seem to possess, is not part of their personality make-up

There is solution to this problem. And it’s here.

When you attempt to do something and it doesn’t seem to work. You analyse what went wrong, you feel that you didn’t approach the task correctly and your abilities weren’t up to scratch for the job, then you begin to berate yourself, as most humans do.

The self-punishment about not getting things right, is the result of being taught how to deal with weakness. That is, don’t tolerate it.

You are either strong or you are not. Old school teaching and living. And it’s very destructive and it’s very wrong.

Old school willpower methods should be abandoned and recognised for being destructive formulas that only lead to disappointments.

The most powerful mental ability that we have is our imagination.

The ability to visualize an idea, to see it in colour and form within the mind’s eye is the one thing that overrides all of our wants and wishes.

When we are happy and light hearted, we tend to carry images of ourselves, in the mind, of being happy and enjoying ourselves.

When we are angry or sad, there are images of this same emotion and action being reflected in the mind’s eye.

It’s a natural and often automatic mental phenomena that we use to help us be who we are.

You can test it by observing yourself when doing something around the house.

If you decide you want to make a cup of coffee or go shopping, you will see, if you look, an image of yourself carrying out the task. Before you actually do it.

For me, it’s a quick flash of the image. Probably built up and developed into a standard visual representation of doing the task many times before.

So called Will Power can also be used, in it’s more powerful visual form, for good habits and bad habits.

Observe yourself when eating, drinking, working at a task – even smoking.

The smoker has an impulse to light-up, then decides it’s time for a smoke, they see an image of themselves with a cigarette in their mouth, and the lighter sparking up the tobacco. All of this occurs as a rapid fast forward movie in the mind.

Imagine if the smoker began to decide that the impulse that they feel, is really only a general feeling for satisfaction in the body and mind?

They could divert the attention and decide to satisfy the ambiguous desire for “something” into a sandwich or fresh air.

It’s all about catching the moment. The moment when the mind begins to form the image in the mind. When that image is there, fully created in full technocolour, you will begin to act on the emotions and impulses that it creates throughout the body and mind.

Imagine that you decide from the first moment to create and image of yourself in action, carrying out a task that you normally find difficult or confusing?

Your powerful imaging, creating a mental movie of what will happen in the next few minutes, will be the motivator and the framework for your physical actions in the real world.

Sometimes, it seems difficult to visualize an idea. Some ideas and actions are so complex that they seem to defy a solid form of representation in the mind.

By breaking down the actions we can see more clearly that there are smaller components that allow us to visualize the outcome of each smaller action.

Just doing it, can give us a better understanding of the task, and so the mind will immediately begin to formulate visual mirrors of those actions that can be used to represent the whole process. Sometimes, the mind uses symbols and closely related feelings that already exists to represent a new action.

Remember, the mind is complex and not all thoughts and feelings can be expressed with words.

Feelings are attached to other feelings, emotions that are strong will override and word-thoughts that you have about changing your actions or behaviour.

Visual representations of new actions that make sense to the mind will help you to develop new habits that you know are going to be useful to you, and will automatically shift your focus away from destructive habits.

It’s up to you to decide what is a destructive habit and what is useful – the mind is not really governed by moral choices, it is governed by “best choices” for survival in all its forms.

I believe that the chain reaction of mental events that occur when a smoker lights up a cigarette, is based on a mental action that visually represents an idea of protection and well-being.

Smokers tend to reflect their reasons for smoking in terms of it helping them… concentrate, relax, socialise, etc.

The end goal of smoking seems, to the mind, to be the objective of achieving something worthwhile, a good goal. Such as relaxing etc. It’s a twisted set of images that slot together through tricky mind games. Think advertising, and you’ll know what I mean.

Logically, we could then wonder how so many of us seeking wealth and health in life end up getting it wrong, and see that maybe we don’t spend enough time thinking about the results of an outcome.

Rather, we like to have what the other guy has, ‘cause it looks good – and I bet it feels good.

Yet, we don’t have clue how it feels to be a millionaire,(many of us.) or to live without stress or worry about the morning. It would be great to know.

But how would it be possible for our minds to visualize something that we have no knowledge of?

Imagine being able to feel and know, deep down inside, how it feels to be financially wealthy. To be super-fit, athlete style fit.

If we could know these feelings, they would have enormous effects on our brains and on our way of actions.

Visualising an idea takes effort.

Rehearsing an idea in action helps us to identify its working parts and to be able to understand it more intimately. This is what we desire, to know how it feels and how it sounds, smells and feels.

To hear things, to smell and taste objects, are fleeting experiences. But, to feel how something is gives us a deeper knowledge of the whole object or idea. If we practise what we desire and develop the feelings associated with it, we will build a representation of that world, that idea into our mental system.

Instead of always hoping to become wealthy, or to become highly knowledgeable about something, try doing things a step at a time.

Find out how it feels to increase your income by a third. Show yourself that you are competent at sticking to a plan and achieving the goal of a small increase in income or important activity.

The mind can believe in change, because it has experience of it.

The mind can engage in activities associated with creating change, more money, better lifestyle, it knows this to be the norm because it wants to follow the principles of self-protection, survival, and achieving security. These are good reasons for the mind to take your desires seriously.

The images and visions that we have about how we live, are what we follow as a mental script.

Did you create these images , or did your environment create them for you?

Whatever is in the mind is what’s going to motivate you to action. And those actions may lead to better things or to more stress, it depends on how well you have thought through about the outcomes of your “Wants & Needs”.

The Image is the powerful motivator which will cause you to take actions towards anything you want

Clarity of Vision is key in being successful with “will-power”.

Your vision and image of self, and of building something better in the world, must be congruent with who you are. Use images to create self, and to create circumstances of wealth and health.

Self-Image and Self-Esteem are closely linked. Self Image is who you are and will dictate how you act, to what you are capable.

Self-Esteem, is your deeper sense of whether you deserve those things – even personality changes for the better can be challenged by low self esteem. Building high self esteem is building a healthy outlook and self respecting self image.

Thanks for reading, and getting so far.

I hope what I write is value to you, and helps you to think seriously about yourself and your own needs. I don’t want to write rules, just a few ideas to prompt thought amongst people who know that we all live in a very colourful and varied world.

We begin to develop friendships when we are children. We go to school and we meet other kids, we play, we talk and exchange ideas about what we like best.

At that age, it’s all an experiment on how to develop a relationship. We don’t stop to ask what type of relationship we are building when we are small people and our only real interests are based on how much fun can we cram into this time together.

These feelings of playfulness in friendships never fade away, but they do get challenged by the over serious attitudes of growing up, becoming mature and wanting to be accepted as an adult who can navigate people effectively.

It’s through playfulness that we really see and understand another person’s point of view, their attitude towards you, and how they value being around you. It’s this value that we get from a friendship that defines what type of relationship we’re having.

Friendships can last a lifetime. Unfortunately, according to statistics, we will all experience the breakdown and loss of friends due to one thing or another. Often we are left standing and wondering what happened.

Why do some friendships that seemed so bound by closeness, openness and shared experiences go into fade and fizzle mode?

One idea that psychologists express, is that the friendship fizzled out because as time passed values changed. Values about what life is, what fun is and how to enjoy time together can change as we learn more about ourselves and the world.

Men, when they are young can often meet adult friends while socialising in a bar – the common meeting place when not much is happening on a friday night. One reason why people visit bars and cafes is because it offers the possibility of ‘something interesting happening’. That happening is slightly out of your control and therefore represents an idea of a playful environment where anything could happen. Singles who seek a partner for a romantic experience, or bored and lonely people in search of companionship with like-minded contemporaries. All of these people can be found in a bar.

Good friendships have been made in bars. The drink loosens up the inhibitions and the jokes flutter from the lips like the best of comedians. At the end of a great night with a bunch of strangers, phone numbers and emails are exchanged and at least one call or text is made to keep contact.

The result is often a good start to a friendship that will blossom into a valuable relationship with another human being, or it will become an attempt at making friends. Meeting up again in some place and in spite of not really knowing the person can be a little stressful, feel a bit forced – unless that first meeting creates a click response that seems to magically cause everything to be alright between you and the other person. Then a friendship begins and you find out who that person really is – over time.

The Double Edged Sword of Friendships

Remember when you where a kid? You made friends played and enjoyed. Summer came and automatically you knew which kids you wanted to spend the most time with, playing, exploring and find things out.

How many summers can you remember that ended in tears? Well, that still happens to us.

We make friends in all sorts of social and work situations. We can never be sure where a friendship is going, so we tend to allow things to develop of its own accord. There’s nothing wrong with that, its the playful way to develop an encounter with another person into a fact finding situation.

It’s just a shame when the time comes and we realise that our new friend, or a friend who’s been around in our lives for a while, becomes a pain in the butt. Suddenly, we feel that things have gone haywire, they seem to express odd ideas or no longer want to join in when it comes to the usual things we do. They were happy enough before, but then something changed.

A good friend always expects their own good friends to be tolerant and understanding of their faults and shortcomings. That’s a healthy attitude to have about friendships, best buddies will have your back even in times when you make mistakes or make a total fool of yourself. But when things change and stay changed, we can see that there has been a change of heart. A friend has been thinking about stuff. Life has been a bit difficult, maybe, and they began to ask questions about themselves and certain values that they have.

They didn’t come and talk to you about it because it was outside of your common experience.

Often, it takes time to understand another person’s values in life. It’s about knowing what is important to them, how they react in certain situations and how much of a giver and a taker they are. These are the tell-tale signs of values.

Some people need a lot of practice to get it right with friendships. They can meet a person and realise that they can get something from them, they can use them to advance their own agenda at work or in social life.

In an attempt to grow, to become more mature about life and put things into a hierarchical form of perspective, people will often go into selfish mode. They have to, they need to take stock and see what doesn’t work anymore.

What doesn’t work anymore can often be replaced by something new, a new value or a way of seeing things with more relevance to their own needs – you might not fit in anymore, or it might be a decision for that person to make, they may realise that they have to let you go. They need to move on.

We put a lot of effort into our real friends, but life is life, it’s a growing and learning experience. People make conscious decisions about what and who is valuable to them. Even the best friendships are a sort of utility that offers support and help in times when we need something. It could be money or emotional need, but hopefully, in a real friendship it’s always been a by-product of how close and open you both are with each other.

Social needs are a powerful emotional force within us. Nobody can honestly claim not to want friends. Some people like to claim that they can’t be bothered with all that emotional back and forth between people, and so say that they are happy without a deeper relationship with a person. Watch them and see them do just the opposite – they need friends, people around them and the security that friendship brings us, just as much as the next person.

We can get burned, be dropped suddenly, a good friend announces that he or she is leaving town for good, and won’t be back again. We deal with it, learn from it and realise that life itself and all it offers is why we are here. Friends are partners in crime, buddies along the way, and a place to go and be secure and open up our hearts in times of trouble. They last that long.

If you have a friend who’s been around for many years and you are already growing old, then you are one lucky person. Most people get to middle-age with a heart full of memories about old friends, and head full of questions about what happened to them.

Today, facebook and social media allows us to track down old friends and see from a distance what they might be doing. The old story of going down memory lane is quite true. It’s generally a bad idea.

If you meet an old friend again, the chances that they are really the same person from all those years ago is slim. If they are the same, then you ask the question; what on earth have they been doing – living in a bunker some place under the ground? They left you in order to change, or because they felt a change coming. Maybe that didn’t happen.

I’ve bumped into old friends from years ago. We chatted and caught up a little. It doesn’t take long to realise that there’s no common ground anymore, we have become different people.

This often becomes apparent when the one person begins to talk soley about the old times, the things we used to do together. An uncomfortable feeling arises hoping that they aren’t suggesting that I drop everything and take up where we parted all that time ago. I’ve got new values in my life.

Families grow, jobs and careers develop into responsibilities, and personal needs about socialising and fun become more defined as we age.

Young people are playing a game. They’re out on the town looking for a soul mate, or an experience that they can put into their diary for later life reading. Most of the time they are testing each other, seeing who is sincere, or who is up for a wild-time for an adventure. This is why they, young people, tend to judge each other by superficial means, important as they are, music and books represent values and ideas. I think today, which social media you use might be a judgmental thing. Some social networks are for young people and some for mature audiences. The music you listen to echoes your own message, often about your attitude to love and friendships.

All of this is an experiment to find out who is who, and what they believe in. As we get older we become more secure about who we are – healthy people can reject an asshole quickly, and not mistake her for a cool person who is just having a laugh at other people’s expense. When you are young and meet a person who loves the same music as you, has read a few books that you have read, then that’s a basis for a connection to try and go deeper.

Later in life books and music are important, if you had good taste. But, family and work which both offer security based on responsible attitudes of those involved can replace many fleeting friendships that might be a bit too much emotion for us. We don’t go seeking adventure in bars and clubs, or hope to hook up with somebody who is cooler than us. The pseudo promises of an adventure that bars offer, doesn’t appeal anymore.

We have developed our thoughts and ideas into solid beliefs about who we are. Old friends can stay old friends and making new friends, which is a refreshing thing to do, is approached with caution. We have something to protect back home, which is where our real life, our solid values are waiting for us.

Take away from this article

We develop the ability to make friends when we play games, especially when we are kids.

We go through life learning about ourselves by reflecting on how we handle relationships.

We discover that friendships, however deep and meaningful they seem, can fizzle out as we understand more and mature into functional human beings.

As young adults we are still learning to make friends. We have to base them on utility. Is it a romantic friendship? Or, Is it a Friendship based on understanding another human being similar to me?

Some people only see value in utility. They use people and have many so called friends that come and go.

When friendships fizzle out, it’s often because of the fact that experiences in life come from many different angles of the day. Your friend will encounter and experience things that are outside of the common experience between you both. They can’t always talk to you about it, they’ll make their own decisions.

It’s perfectly normal to lose good friends. We need to understand how to let people go their own way so that they can mature and learn. And how doing so helps us to understand our own values and needs in life.

As we get older our values change. We take on responsibilities that offer more security, so they come first and new friendships have to develop more organically.

It’s perfectly normal to go through life with only two good friends at any time. You can give time to two friends, but try being there for ten or fifteen demanding friends everyday.

There’s a lot of talk about Personal values and Belief on the internet. People need to know how to establish themselves in life, how to be something.

Values are very much related to understanding. How you look at the world and how you deal with the world on a daily basis.

If you believe in a dogma or ideology, and you don’t spend time thinking about it, trying to understand it, then you will have a conflict with your values.

Why?

Your values are the ideas that reoccur when you come into conflict with something like a circumstance or another person who tries to coerce you or force you to do things that you don’t believe in. Your believe in a dogma or ideology, like a flag and demand that you stand firm in your beliefs and defend your values.

We all want to experience new things. So, when we come across a new situation that offers something that may help us or increase our well being, either with security or money, we take it seriously.

We will investigate it and make decisions about its value to us.

It may be something that other people don’t think of as being worthwhile. It may be a rare idea or something off the beaten track, but it’s up to you to decide. If it’s new and you take it on board, try it out, and discover that it fits well into your life then you’ve found something that already relates to your present values.

If you realise it’s the missing part in your search for a better life and it means an enormous change that requires strength of mind and persistent effort until it becomes a natural element in your life, then it’s a new value that you are developing.

Sure, it’s a new everything. New activity, new feelings and new orientation in life. But that’s okay, it’s of value to you.

The key to making it successfully through change of values – or even beliefs, is to be able to use all of your resources to stay the course. Not to flag and a fall at the wayside halfway. That would be a shame to allow it to happen.

The biggest reason for failure in anything is lack of effort. Half hearted attempts and throwing the towel in too early are common – probably about 95% of the population try something new each year, especially after january the 1st, then they quit within weeks of starting. It could’ve lead to a better life, or a more meaningful existence.

Changing values happens when people understand something more deeply than they did before.

You can’t know something,believe it’s useful in your life and then discover that your thinking is faulty but continue to follow the idea anyway. Only a moron defies the logic of understanding through his or her incompetence.

Some people seem stubborn and never change – I think it’s simply that they never learned to think about their actions. Then, other people who live lives of action without thought encounter an event in life that throws them from the rock face and they fall into the valley. They wake up, hopefully, with a new perspective on life. Change can create new thought, new thought processes demand reorganisation of the belief and values system in ourselves.

People change all of the time, most often from hard to easy. From tough stuff to comfort stuff. They stunt their growth as human beings by avoiding the hard things in life, facing up to themselves and understanding that they don’t know it all, to know that so long as we are alive and living amongst others we have an opportunity to learn and improve our ability to be better at what we do. To be real humans.

Change causes change of values. Your outlook changes often if you are genuinely interested in the world. You can’t live a life without effort, without working on things such as your opinions and your ideals.

What was good at 18 years old will seem shallow at 30 years old. Try it, listen to the music that you loved at 18 years old – sure some of it will be classic, great and never-forgettable, but most of it will be a baffling experience of “why did I like that music?”. The brain grows and the mind develops, we change and so do our values.

To have Self-Knowledge is an empowered way of living. To know yourself, is to know who you are, what your values are and exactly what you believe in.

Just to have this knowledge in your daily life, is enough to ensure that you will be successful at anything you set out to do.

A person who knows themself doesn’t waste time pursuing activities that don’t fit their own beliefs and values.

How do we discover who we are?

That’s a big question, and sometimes, people spend a lifetime asking it and trying to find out who they are.

I have been using a form of note taking to sum up my feelings and thoughts for many years. I call it my notes, others call it Journalling. In either case, the name is unimportant, the activity of writing down what you really feel about yourself and your life, is of great value.

Think about it, only you can write down what you feel, and think about any action or experience in the world.

I say this because many people, too many, keep looking outwards for help about their own problems. I think it’s because of the belief that we are all the same, people are pursuing the same things in life, and that logic tells us that if you find another person who is successful in life, you can emulate them, or even copy their actions and also become successful.

I’m all for emulation of the skills, but the person is not you. To copy their style, their way of doing things, is a mistake which leads to frustrations.

You have to know yourself to guide yourself through the complex issues of life.

Finding a great Mindset, a great idea for business or how to be successful in any activity is all about you and your deeper self.

Self Knowledge has always been the way to success. Don’t underestimate the power of it.

Journalling is writing. Writing is an action between mind and body. It is not a passive activity – as some people might believe.

When you decide to try writing down what you feel about what you want in life, you begin to reveal thoughts and ideas that you didn’t know you had before.

The action of writing is very different to simply thinking about something. Your mind becomes very focused during the time you write.

I suppose it doesn’t matter if you use a pen and paper, or a computer to journal. Some people use voice, although I imagine that speaking your thoughts can lead to waffling a lot before you reach anything of interest – a bit like being in therapy where you talk, and talk, and then peel back the layers of your mind bit by bit.

If you begin a journal, begin it with an intention. Something of value to you. To discover if you are really on the right track in work, or life, or to discover what you really want out of life.

Writing how you feel about money and business is a powerful eye-opener for most people. It’s the way to clear your feelings about your views of money. Many of us were brought up with some pretty odd ideas about what money is.

Think of it, when you were a kid and listened to adults arguing about money, telling others that money causes problems, that money is the root of evil … all the bad stuff about money that people blurt out, all of these things are emotional lies. People need to blame something for their failings. Money doesn’t fight back, it just stays away from people who don’t like it.

If you look at money in a logical way, you will have to admit that it’s a pretty handy thing to have, actually.

Telling yourself that you don’t need money, or that you think money corrupts people’s thinking, is just another way of shirking responsibility. Are you so weak that having a good income would corrupt you?

By writing what you feel and think about money will reveal a few facts about how you value money and possessions.

Healthy thinking would reveal that you know that money is a good thing; it pays the damn bills, and it allows you to make choices in life that are otherwise out of reach. Why not get some, and why not want a large income?

We live in an economic system that allows us to participate in business. If you are a freelancer, or have a small business, you are in business. You are one of the new entrepreneurs of the 21st Century. Don’t create conflict in your mind by denying that you’re in it for money.

It depends what you want to do with money that makes all the difference. Don’t you think?

Imagine yourself in a situation where you know so much about yourself that you feel sure and confident about the work you do, you feel that when you develop an idea for business or decide what to do in life, you are very confident about the tasks involved.

To experience a life where self-confidence and self-empowerment are always present, is to be a person who has delved deeply into their own thoughts and feelings. Writing into your journal each morning, being very honest with yourself and presenting yourself with powerful questions will take you into a mental state that allows you to see what you are and where you are going more clearly.

Asking questions that you have always avoided is a brave thing to do. It takes guts to be honest with yourself. Most people like to live in comfort zones, to avoid conflict and just get on with the same old routine as yesterday. They will never move forwards, or make shift in consciousness that will reveal to them how much opportunity is in their lives.

You can change the things that are holding you back by starting a journal or notebook about yourself.

The journal is a very selfish act. It doesn’t include others, really. It’s all about you, and all about what you want and discovering exactly what is standing in your way.

Get past the odd feeling of being selfish, or that feeling that says you don’t have time to do things – like spending twenty minutes writing about the most important person in your life, you.

After a couple of days, or maybe a week, you will begin to see the value of notebooks. It will cause you to realise which feelings are fantasies, which feelings and thoughts are realistic and which ideas you have need to be fleshed out. It’ll give you perspective like you can’t get by just meandering over ideas on the bus or train.

I thoroughly recommend that you give it a try and hopefully, after a few days you’ll come back here and leave a few comments on your experiences as a mindshift journal writer.

Use a pen and paper or your computer

Stay human – don’t procrastinate by searching for Apps and things to help you. It’s all about you.

Write each day.

Write in the morning immediately after waking or before bed at night.

Ask yourself deep questions about why, how, what and when then answer them with brutal honesty. Nobody else reads your journal.